Colouring MIR after all the greyscale work felt like startiing from scratch once again but the new method is really quick and all I needed to do to advance was find the willpower to stop playing minecraft.

Monday, 5 December 2011

I have better reference than when I did the texturing test and it is already showing in the current line work.

I have just made a couple of the panel lines from the main body but the difference between this version and the old one is already visible.

The skylab is mapped diferent to the MIR model and allows for more bespoke work in the texture so it will be closer to the real thing. The level of accuracy will depend on the reference and certain artistic license.

I will probably add some more geometry to include a few details I had no knowledge of before. I still have some space in the texture....not much though.

Friday, 2 December 2011

The usual multiply layer makes the textures look dirty and dark. The new technique I am using involves adding colour by layering overlay and soft-light layers.

The best thing about this technique is that allows the refinement of colours long after they have been applied. Using layer masks to apply them also makes sure that the colour is consistent across the whole texture. This was quite annoying when you complete a metal panel and have to repeat the process in a new one...."How did I do it?.....this method is perfect for repeating.

Other good point is that the materials can be repeated in different textures by copying the layers and reseting the layer masks....

I am very happy with this new process. This shows the core module being coloured. The red-brown color is the starting base over which the rest has been layered.

I have to give all credit to Stephen Flack as I learnt this technique with his tutorial.

Thursday, 3 November 2011

I think this is a good time to show some shots of the earth used in the game

They have been rendered using several layers.

The first layer is the diffuse earth colour which has the photographic information and some bump map to add volume and shadows.

The second is the cloud layer. This is made out of two spheres with the same texture but different settings. The bottom of these two layers has a blur factor on the alpha mask to create extra volume under the top sharper layer. These layers cast shadows on the bottom diffuse sphere.

The top is the atmosphere layer. It is made out of a flat bright blue colour made visible using a falloff effect. This effect means that the layer is only visible at shallow angles. The result is the blurry atmosphere at the edges of the earth.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

I was quite daunted by the prospect of texturing the MIR space station. The texture page is quite complex and is quite slow to look for the bits you want to paint and guess the result, specially when making panels.

I have been looking at a tool that allows me to paint straight into the 3d model. Viewport Canvas lets me do just that. I am just blocking out the panels and although the result is quite crude, I can use this as a guide to make the final texture much quicker.

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

I have all the models built, UV mapped and ingame and I am currently in the process of texturing them.

I thought it was a good idea to make sure the game works before doing all the fun part which is building the models. That is why I developed all the gameplay with placeholder models and even once I had the final models built they were still untextured.

I think that not seeing the final model until the end keeps the interest and also allows you to play the final version of the game almost with fresh eyes.

Anyway, having all the models built and UV mapped allows me to move quickly from texturing one model to the next. I finished the astronaut yesterday and I have started the MIR russian station today.

This is by far the more challenging model of all the available in the game. Due to the restrictions in texture size and the ammount of geometry and repeated elements, this is the model that reuses more texture elements.

To identify the bits that repeat I had to add numbers to the texture.

This is the first step. Just some blocked colours and a few lines at the moment... it is going to take a while...